President Lee Bollinger, the chairman, called the Senate to
order shortly after 1:15 pm in 501
Schermerhorn. Sixty-four of 98 senators were present during the meeting.

Adoption of the
agenda: Sen. Paul Duby (Ten., SEAS) suggested that the Senate take up the
by-laws amendments proposed by the Research Officers immediately if and when
three-fifths of all incumbent members are present. With this understanding the
agenda was adopted as proposed.

Adoption of the
minutes: The minutes of February 25 were adopted as proposed.

President’s report:
The president thanked the Ad Hoc Arts and Sciences Committee on Grievances,
which had released its report the day before on recent charges of classroom
intimidation against some faculty members in the Department of Middle East and
Asian Languages and Cultures (MEALAC). He also thanked people who had
participated in the committee’s inquiry, as well as the community at large for
handling the issues seriously.

The president said the committee had a number of findings on
Columbia’s grievance procedures.
The administration had already been studying this matter for some time and
expects, within the next two weeks, to announce revised grievance procedures.

Among other issues the University must address over time,
the president mentioned academic freedom, on which he had lectured a week
before, and on which the ad hoc committee and others had made statements as
well. He stressed the importance to the Columbia
community, and to higher education as a whole, of conducting this discussion repeatedly.

Executive Committee
chairman’s report: Sen. Duby reminded senators that the last regular
meeting of the year had been moved from April 29 to May 6 and invited them to
join the annual Senate procession at Commencement.

Interaction
with Trustees: In recent years Senate representatives have not been
included in the March Trustee meetings, which have been retreats. But this
year, after a useful meeting between the Senate and Trustee executive
committees on February 10, he and Sen. Matan Ariel
(Stu., GS) were invited. Trustee Joan Spero said Trustees had established a
subcommittee for the purpose of improving communications with students. Board
chairman David Stern introduced both Senate representatives, and ran an
informative and interestingmeeting.

The Executive Committee devoted most of its March 25 meeting
to a discussion of the work of the ROTC TF with its co-chairs, Sens. James
Applegate (Ten., A&S/NS) and Nathan Walker (Stu., TC).
The group decided to proceed with a broad discussion at the present plenary,
which will inform efforts to prepare a resolution for the last Senate
meeting.

Sen. Duby determined that 61 of 98 senators were present,
two more than three-fifths of the full membership, and called for taking up the
researchers’ by-laws amendments right away.

Resolutions to Add
Researchers to Six Senate Committees (Structure and Operations): Howard
Jacobson, Senate parliamentarian and a member of Structure and Operations,
presented the resolutions in the absence of the committee chair, Sen. Vielka
Holness (Admin.), and Sen. Jeremy Waldron (Ten., Law). He said the resolutions
had been before the Senate at previous meetings, and presented an amended
version of the one on the Rules of Conduct. He said Structure and Operations
believes that researchers should be on all six committee.

After brief discussion, the Senate decided to vote on all
the resolutions separately.

Structure
and Operations: Without further discussion the Senate then voted, by asking
for negative votes and absentions first, on the resolution to add one research
officer to the Structure and Operations. There was no dissent, so the
resolution was determined to have passed.

Alumni
Relations: By the same method the Senate voted without dissent to add one
research officer to the Alumni Relations Committee.

Budget
Review: By the same method, the Senate, with 62 members now present, voted
without dissent to add one research officer to the Budget Review Committee.

Rules
of Conduct: By the same method, the Senate favored the amended resolution to
add one research officer to the Committee on the Rules of University Conduct.

Education:
Mr. Jacobson noted that the resolutions to add one research officer to the Education
and Executive committees had a narrower eligibility requirement than the other
four resolutions: the researcher has to be a senior professional research
officer, with a title equivalent to that of a tenured faculty member.

Sen. Letty Moss-Salentijn (Ten., SDOS), chair of Education,
said she would vote against the resolution. She said a number of members of her
committee also opposed this resolution on principle. She said education is not
part of the mandate of researchers. The small subset of researchers who are
actually participating in education should be added to the faculty.

Sen. Kacy Redd (Stu., GSAS/NS), a graduate student in
biology, said she had worked in six labs, and in three of them she had worked
closely with post-docs, research officers who play a central role in the teaching
of graduate students.

Sen. Eugene Litwak (Ten.,
A&S/SS) said that in his discipline, social sciences, 80 percent of the
research work is learned in practice, not in the classroom. He said researchers
play a vital role, in the social sciences as well as the natural sciences, in
what people are proud to call a research university.

Mr. Jacobson noted the view of Structure and Operations that
the Education Committee already has two administrators, one alumnus, and one
librarian—groups that also are not involved in teaching—and that if these
groups are represented on Education, researchers should be too.

Sen. Sally Findley (Nonten., PH) supported the inclusion of
researchers on Education because the collaboration of teaching and service efforts
is vital to the functioning of the University.

Sen. Eugene Galanter (Ten., A&S/NS) agreed with Sen.
Salentijn, saying that there really is a distinction between the kinds of work
faculty and researchers do.

Sen. James Applegate (Ten.,
A&S/NS) disagreed with Sen. Salentijn. He said that in his lab, astrophysics,
research officers play an important mentoring role for both graduate and
undergraduate students, and this is a significant educational function.

Sen. Redd elaborated on her earlier point. She said the last
three years of her five-year doctoral program—the most important ones—are spent
mostly in the lab, where the training is done mostly by post-docs.

Sen. Daniel Savin, chairman of the Research Officers
Committee, paraphrased the by-laws, noting the Education Committee’s mandate to
receive ideas, recommendations, and plans for educational innovations. He said researchers
have been fulfilling these roles, designing degree programs and courses, and
mentoring students outside the classroom.

Sen. Duby agreed with Sen. Salentijn. He said there are
other groups who are contributing to the University, including adjunct and
clinical faculty, who are not recognized in the University Senate. He suggested
that senior researchers should strive for tenure of title, an arrangement at
the MedicalCenter
for some faculty.

Sen. Savin thought Sen. Duby was confusing researchers with
other groups that, unlike researchers, are not Senate constituencies. Sen.
Savin also expressed interest in the idea of tenure of title for researchers.

Sen. Maya Tolstoy (Research Officer, Lamont) said she
thought other groups, like adjunct faculty, should also have a voice in the
Senate. She added that education, in a real way. is part of the mandate of
everyone in the University. She concluded by asking opponents of the resolution
why they think researchers make less of a contribution to education than the
other non-faculty representatives on the committee.

The president said it was time for the Senate, 64 of whose
98 members were now present, to vote. Using the same counting method as for the
previous resolutions, the secretary determined that 10 senators opposed the
resolution, leaving no more than 54 positive votes for a resolution that needed
a supermajority of 59 senators, The resolution failed.

Executive:
Sen. Savin argued that adding a researcher to the Executive Committee is a
natural consequence of the Senate decision in November 2002 to increase the voting
delegation of researchers from two to six, which altered the original design of
the Senate, which provided for only token representation for all groups besides
faculty and students.

Sen. Findley asked if the gender balance among researchers
and faculty would have the consequence that excluding researchers from the
Executive Committee would amount to excluding women. Sen. Savin said he was
only of only two men on the nine-member Research Officers Committee.

Sen. Frances Pritchett (Ten., A&S/ Hum.) asked how the
Executive Committee functions at its current size, and asked if there might be
disadvantages in enlarging it.

Sen. Duby replied that the present membership—13—works
well.Meeting attendance is strong. He
argued that the committee should represent the faculty and the students, along
with the president and the provost. The Senate was set up mainly to enfranchise
faculty, and its proportions assure that tenured professors almost constitute
an majority, and do constitute a majority in combination with the nontenured
faculty. The founders also envisioned a significant role for students. He
concluded that the Executive Committee should not be enlarged, partly because
of a risk that other constituencies will then demand seats. For this reason, he
said he would vote against the resolution

Sen. Suzanne Bakken (Ten., Nursing) favored adding a
researcher to the Executive Committee. She said researchers are important to
the Columbia enterprise,
particularly at Health Sciences.

Sen. Michael Adler (Ten. Bus.) supported the resolution in
the name of inclusion.

Sen. Savin said enlarging committee membership by one seat
would not be a numerically significant change. He added that researchers are
seeking a broader role in a university senate, not a faculty senate, and
researchers can provide a useful complementary perspective.

In the vote that followed, 8 senators opposed the
resolution, leaving the number of favorable votes no higher than 56, three
short of the 59 needed for a three-fifths majority for the measure.

Committee reports:

--Commission on the
Status of Women (Prof. Christia Mercer, co-chair): Prof. Mercer reminded
senators of the one-page summary of the case for day care that had been
distributed at the previous meeting. She said the Commission’s main goal this
year was to assess the need for child care around Columbia,
and to propose solutions. So the group collected preliminary data, learning
about different options, and finding out about Columbia’s
peers.

They learned that there are 333 pre-school children of
officers (not graduate students or support staff), and only 174 child care
places for them. For children 1-15 months old, there are only 20 places, almost
all of them reserved for Teachers College employees.

In its comparative research, the Commission discovered
Bright Horizons, an experiencedconsulting group that has advised MIT, Yale, Princeton
and others. It typically does a full assessment of child care needs through
interviews and surveys, counting the children, learning their families’ income
levels, and projecting how many children will show up at the door for different
day care models.

Prof. Mercer was pleased to report that Provost Brinkley had
just signed a contract with Bright Horizons, and for more extensive services than
the Commission had requested. She anticipated that in about six months, the
Commission will use the data Bright Horizons will have collected as the basis
for a request for a child care progam.

Sen. Matan Ariel (Stu., GS)
said many of his constituents, like graduate students, are parents. Was the
Commission accounting for this group? She said the provost is asking Bright
Horizons to assess child care needs of students and other groups as well as
faculty.

Sen. Rebecca Baldwin (Stu., Nursing) pointed out that children
born to students don’t choose whether they’re born to students or faculty, and should
be given equal opportunity to participate in any available day care or
schooling opportunities. Prof. Mercer
agreed.

Sen. Applegate, a former member of the Commission and an author
of the pipeline report produced under Prof. Jean Howard’s leadership, suspected
that a main reason for the precipitous drop in the percentage of women in
applicant pools for faculty positions in all disciplines was inadequate child
care. He thought success in this effort could bring a lot more female
applicants..

Prof. Mercer said several peer institutions—MIT, Princeton,
Yale, and others—have recognized this major leak in the academic pipeline for
women. She recalled coming to Columbia
14 years old with two children, one three months old, naively expecting to find
child careThe experience had been
difficult. She noted MIT’s recent decision, in recognition of the difficulties
women face especially in the sciences, to devote the first floor of their new
computer science building to day care (a program run by Bright Horizons). She
said a new day care program, either in the new science building or in one of
the areas vacated by science departments moving into the science building, wouldbe an important gesture.

Sen. Findley mentioned the emphasis in Commission
discussions on the need for on-site child care, especially for junior faculty
at a crucial stage in their careers. Prof. Mercer said this need is
particularly acute for women in the sciences.

Sen. Bradley Bloch (Alum.) asked Prof. Mercer to outline the
next steps. She said Bright Horizons will conduct a complete survey and
identify nearby sites for day care centers. One possibility is Knox Hall.
Bright Horizons will supply cost and use projections that the Commission
couldn’t do. With that information the Commission can make a knowledgeable
proposal to the administration.

Sen. Bloch asked, as a member of the Physical Development
Committee, how the Commission will interact with Columbia
facilities and space planners. Prof. Mercer said Provost Brinkley and Bill
Scott, VP for IRE, have been actively involved in planning discussions.

Once the projections are in hand, Prof. Mercer said, the
Commission will have to think carefully about the next few steps.She said Columbia
will certainly not be able to afford to build day care spaces for every single
child who needs them.

Sen. Adler asked if Columbia
could proceed with a day care plan for itself without the provisions for the
community that have attended the ColumbiaSchool project.

Prof. Mercer said this issue is one reason why the facts and
figures are so important. They will help planners to consider different models.
The ideal is a lovely day care center, but such programs, whether run by Bright
Horizons or Tompkins Hall or the Greenhouse, now cost $1000-1200 per month.
This is a big bill for an assistant professor. A more affordable model, which
she saw as a graduate student in Germany,
was cooperative day care, enabling some parents to help out regularly for a
discount on tuition. She said options like these might make it possible for
people from the community to participate. But the Commission has to understand
the needs of the Columbia
community.

Sen. Walker proposed to move on to take up issues of
particular importance to Student Affairs.

Responding to Sen. Peter Platt (Fac., Barn.), Prof. Mercer
confirmed that the census of 333 children includes Barnard and Teachers
College, and that Barnard and Teachers College people would be counted in
constituencies involved in day care.

New Business:

--Resolution
Concerning “Open Access” (Libraries and Academic Computing): Sen.
Pritchett, standing in for committee chairman Jeremy Waldron (Ten., Law) said
the resolution before the Senate was partly a matter of consciousness raising
about open access as well as an opportunity for the Senate to affirm a moral
commitment to that principle. She asked Sen. James Neal, Vice President for
Information Services and University Librarian, to elaborate.

He described a broad international movement that is trying
to reduce barriers for faculty, students and researchers around the world, to
secure access, and to break through current economic pressures as well as national
legislative initiatives that are making it more difficult for scholars to
access the fruits of our labor.

Sen. Neal said much of the open access movement has revolved
around the “author pay model.”A Columbia
trustee in fact has advanced this idea through the creation of the Public Library
of Science. But open access involves many more issues. He said the goal of the
resolution is not a set of prescriptive measures but to set a foundation for
action and advocacy on, for example, the recent commitment by the National
Institutes of Health, to make the products of research available to those who
have paid for it—the American taxpayers.

Sen. Neal said journal editors are realizing that after a
period of time the literature they’re producing should not be embargoed any longer,
but made available on the public web.Scholars in many disciplines are depositing their research papers on
disciplinary pre-print servers, following the precedent set by physicists and mathematicians
in the late 1980s. Universities like Columbia
are putting up institutional repositories making the digital work of students
and faculty available and searchable on the public web.Scholars should negotiate publishing
contracts allowing them to put their own work up on their own individual web
sites, available to scholars and students around the world.

Sen. Neal also mentioned “orphan” works, many of which are still
in copyright (published after 1923) but no longer have economic viability. For
others it is no longer possible to identify the owner.Even though still covered by copyright, such
material can under open access be made available for education and
research.

Sen. Neal stressed that open access is not in conflict with
peer review or copyright ownership or . author compensation.Individuals can be compensated under open
access. But after a period of time some of that material becomes available to scholars
and students around the world.

Sen. Neal said the resolution sought Senate endorsement of this
general direction in the scholar community, a broader awareness of this
initiative across the university, and a foundation for action and advocacy in
scholarly and information policy circles.

President Bollinger asked if the resolution committed the
institution to anything at this pointbeyond saying that open access is a good idea and should be pursued.
Sen. Neal said it did not..

The president suggested that if the resolution is
controversial, it should be perhaps be voted on at another meeting. He asked
for discussion.

Sen. Redd said she didn’t fully understand the issue.

Sen. Neal said libraries have been paying a lot of money for
journals for a long time. Open access enables libraries to provide them more
freely on the web after a period of use.Those who get grants from the Federal government are being asked to make
their publications available twelve months after publication. Digital rights
management systems are locking up a lot of this content unfairly. There are
concerns about new copyright laws in Washington
that really are eliminating the public domain and making it much more difficult
to provide access to this material for the scholarly and educational
communities.Open access is working to
make more research produced in the academy available for use in the academy and
not to turn it over to commercial publishers.

In response to a question from Sen. Galanter, Sen. Neal said
the open access movement has convinced Elsevier, one of the major scientific
journals, to give authors the right to put up their individual papers on their
personal web sites.

The president understood the resolution to endorse the idea
of open access, recognizing that there are tradeoffs, but not to commit Columbia
to pursue this idea at the expense of every other value.

By voice vote the Senate unanimously endorsed the
resolution.

Old business:

--Revised Resolution to Establish a Procedure for Student Grievances(Student Affairs, Faculty Affairs):
Sen. Ariel said the resolution had been slightly revised since the last
plenary.He stressed that it does not in any way go
against procedures already in place, but provides an appeal procedure in cases
where school procedures have been exhausted. He said the current resolution was
a joint effort of faculty and student committees. He said it would be a true
honor if the Senate were to accept the principle of student involvement in the
creation of grievance procedures.

President Bollinger understood the resolution as proposing a
university-wide grievance procedure that, if passed, must come to the university
administration, which must decide whether to endorse it and take it to the
Trustees. His view was that the Trustees should sign off on such a procedure. He
added that extensive work is under way on grievance procedures in every school
across the university.Some are done and
up on the web; others are undergoing final revisions.Generally speaking, school faculties are
driving this process. The president said deans have a considerable stake in university-wide
procedures and have made clear that they want to participate in their creation..

Without taking a position on this issue, the president
reported serious faculty disagreement with the idea of students on panels reviewing
claims of faculty misconduct.He said grievance
processes across the university are still works in progress, and will take
shape in a few weeks.

Sen. Ariel offered the clarification that the resolution
does not tell schools how to conduct grievances.It only describes a procedure for appealing
to the president and provost.So there
is no infringement of the rights of deans.

The president said deans may say not want their students’
grievances against faculty to end up in a university-wide procedure. He also
expressed concern about possible parallel procedures.

Mr. Jacobson
understood that grievance and discipline issues have always been addressed in
school-based procedures, except when the Statutes have carved out an exception,
like the Rules of University Conduct governing demonstrations and rallies.

President Bollinger asked about sexual misconduct policy.
Mr. Jacobson said each school could
choose whether to adopt this policy, and the LawSchool (and perhaps others) opted
out.

The president established that a law student therefore
cannot go to the “University” with a charge of sexual misconduct.

Sen. Walker said the relevant precedent is the Rules, not
sexual misconduct. The other model is the University Senate role in
investigating faculty grievances. He said the pressing issue now is that Columbia
is a divided commuity, with students using the media to criticize faculty. This
is an indication of trouble. He said the resolution supports the efforts
schools have made to articulate their own grievance prodedures. The resolution
covers those rare instances when the Executive Committee would have to decide
whether to take up an appeal.

Sen. Walker added that the current resolution offers the
only grievance procedure written in the last six months that has included
students in the creation.It was also a
joint effort of students and faculty. He said it would be a painful outcome for
Columbia students if the resolution
fails because of a belief that students should not participate in policymaking.
It is saying that the student input doesn’t matter. I’m hoping that won’t be
the result of our deliberations.

Mr. Jacobson thought the Rules are not an apt example
because they are an amendment to the Statutes, a carveout from the normal
system.

Mr. Jacobson also expressed a reservation about the role of
the Senate Executive Committee in creating a group. If a faculty member is
accused of something under the grievance procedure and it’s serious enough, he
or she may want to grieve under the University Statutes, and the grievance
procedures call for the faculty member to grieve to the Faculty Affairs Committee.If the conduct is very serious and a decision
is made to terminate a tenured professor, the process for adjudicating the
charges (extremely rare) once again involves the Faculty Affairs Committee. The
result of this process is a conflict of interest, putting Senate committees in
effect on both sides of the same issue.

Sen. Bloch asked for clarification of what happens to Senate
resolutions once they’re adopted. His own understanding was that Senate action
go directly to the trustees without needing administration approval first. His
second point was to warn of the need for coordination of various efforts to
build grievance procedures, so that the pieces fit together.

The president said his point had been that the administration
has to make a recommendation about any Senate resolution headed for the
Trustees.

He said the question of coordination was important to him,
and his sense was that deans want to participate in this process. He said a
community consensus is essential on this issue. He noted that decisionmaking in
the university is necessarily fractured.So the Senate’s consideration of a university-wide procedure is entirely
appropriate. He just saw a need for some more university-wide consultation. He
called for patience and reflection and inclusion in that discussion. He was troubled by the possibility of a new
controversy about the nature of grievance procedures, pitting the Senate against
the schools.

Marsha Wagner, the ombuds officer,said the vice presidents of Arts and Sciences
and of the MedicalCenter
seemed to have been left out of the resolution. Sen. Ariel answered that those
vice presidents are also deans of their faculties.

Sen. Baldwin suggested that the present resolution might not
be necessary if more students had been involved in the current redesign of
grievance procedures. As it is, the Senate procedure is the only example of
significant student involvement. There are recent examples that the appearance
of impropriety is as damaging as impropriety itself, and student involvement as
in the Senate procedure is a unique way to address that problem.She suggested that it the present
resolution does not pass, consideration should be given to redoing all of the
school procedures with students in mind., not only for the sake of future
student grievants, but for the sake of the university and its appearance to the
outside world

The president said it is important that schools develop
their grievance procedures autonomously, without invervention from the
university. He also acknowledged the importance of the question of student
involvement. He suggested further conversations between the Senate and deans.

Sen. Coilin Parsons (Stu., GSAS/Hum.) said there is
uncertainty about what university-wide procedures are in effect.

The president said the current process goes to the provost
and the president in some cases. The Senate is asking whether there should be a
kind of intermediary role for the Executive Committee at the university level.
He said he was completely open to that possibility.

Sen. Galanter said that at the faculty caucus meeting before
the Senate he had said that efforts to set up grievance procedures are being founded
on a particular accidental event.He had
recommended pausing and considering carefully whether the Senate should take
structural measures that might complicate the activities of the deans. He
thought he had heard a general sense of agreement with what he was saying.

President Bollinger proposed a reading of the resolution
that it seems like a good idea, but that before making a final judgment and
submitting it to the Trustees there should be discussions between a Senate
delegation and deans in search of a consensus. After that the Senate could make
a final decision

Sen. Ariel asked if the president would use his influence to
make sure no new grievance procedures are announced before such meetings take
place with the deans.

The president said he could not do that. He said school
procedures could always be changed. But it was critical to the institution for
schools to announce their grievance procedures now.

Sen. Mohr offered two resolutions: one supporting the
participation of the student representatives in decisions on grievances at the
university and school levels, the other on the present resolution. He saidhe wanted to avoid the misimpression that a vote against the present
resolution is a vote against students.

Sen. Jen Schnidman (Stu., CC) reminded the Senate that the
present initiative had been on the agenda for four months now, first as a
report and now as a resolution. In its original form, students sought student
representation on the ad hoc committee that has now just finished its work, but
that idea was dropped because students were told it was too late. She added
that the president’s present proposal would have similar consequences. If the
Senate presents its procedures after the schools have done theirs, their
proposals will be ignored.

The president said he respected the point. But he sketched
an alternative: the Senate approves the present resolution and sends it to the
Trustees, but the schools oppose it as it goes to the Trustees.

Mr. Jacobson saidSection 25 of the University Statutes says actions of the Senate will be
final unless the president shall advise the University Senate not later than
the next regularly scheduled meeting that the Trustee concurrence is necessary.
President Bollinger added that he felt he had to include the Trustees on the
issue of university-wide grievance procedures.

Sen. John Brust (Ten., HS) said passing the resolution and
rejecting it were both unsatisfactory options, the latter because of the
anti-student message it would seem to send. Splitting it into two measures as
Sen. Mohr had suggested would only lengthen the discussion. He therefore moved
to table the resolution.

Mr. Jacobson explained that motions to table are not
debatable or amendable. They do not kill the motion under discussion, but
postpone it to some future time, at which time the Senate can vote by simple
majority to bring it back for action.

Sen. Walker askedhow
much of a postponement Sen. Brust had in mind—till May or longer?

Sen. Brust said he didn’t know how long it should be
delayed, but it was clear at the caucus meeting and in the present discussion
that there are many ramifications to be worked out.

The Senate then voted on the motion to table the resolution
to adopt a new grievance procedure until such time as the Senate decided to
bring it back by majority vote. The motion was defeated by a vote of 26-19.

Sen. Ariel quoted the final sentence of the ad hoc committee
report that had been released the day before:“We need to reaffirm that sense of collective responsibility which is
vital for the well being of every community of scholars and to nurture the
mutual respect required to sustain us in our common quest for the promotion of
learning and the advancements of knowledge.” Sen. Ariel stressed the term
“collective responsibility.”

The question was moved and the Senate voted on the
resolution to establish a new student grievance procedure. It passed by a vote
of 25-17-2.

The president proposed to use his offices to arrange
meetings with other constituencies, but said the Senate had chosen to use this
procedure. He repeated that he had advised the Senate that this resolutionwould have to go to the Trustees, given
current circumstances at the university.

Sen. Ariel said students would be happy to accept the
president’s offer of discussion in the next few weeks.

Sen. Karl Kroeber (Ten., A&S/Hum), a member of the
Faculty Affairs Committee, also welcomed the opportunity offered by the
president for discussions with deans.

--Preliminary report of the ROTC Task Force: As the discussion was
about to begin, another group entered and said it had reserved the the room for
the rest of the afternoon.

The president decided to call a special meeting sometime
during the next week or so.